


seven

by sp8ce



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by Taylor Swift, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:34:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25526770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sp8ce/pseuds/sp8ce
Summary: inspired by the taylor swift song
Relationships: Aradia Megido/Vriska Serket
Kudos: 6





	seven

There is a version of you that exists somewhere in some corner of another universe that knows nothing but exploration and life. And maybe time shifts like kaleidoscopes or maybe it dances like summer dusk’s rays through trees. Maybe there’s parts of you that live in the stones beneath the waves that keep hitting the shores in their circular fashion. Maybe there’s a parallel version of your being that knows what it’s like to beat her in your race to the top of the lighthouse.

She’d probably laugh at that thought. And call you a sore loser or something.

You would have outpassed her to the top of the tree, though, because you were right at the part before you switched trees to climb higher that she couldn’t do. But before you could switch, she stomped on your fingers and  _ jumped  _ to the tree beside you instead of balancing across. She slid down a bit, grasping at branches, but then she outpaced you further while you were clinging there in shock. She just smirked down at you.

She always put you at unease. She always knocked you out of your swinging momentum with the lurch in your chest. She’d be the moon in your sky while you are just ignoring the stars wondering how to prevent the moon from coming and crashing into the earth. 

But when you were screaming in the woods as you slid down the hill beside the waterfall and she grins sliding into you, pushing you faster so you’re knocked into the creek, black skirt soaked and muddy, with her at your back, grabbing your hand, leading you fast up the opposite side, running to the mossy hills not far away, all you could feel was pure love for her.

This is who you are, you realise, even when she mocks you relentlessly when you can’t jump in the creek if it’s from the swinging rope in the tree. But all you can feel is the infinity of the ground below you. The sun and the wind at your face, on your limbs, so high. You have to be several houses high. She’s always afraid to get this high, though she’d never admit it, so you never ask her why she makes excuses at the halfway point. Because you’re scared she’d do something stupid to prove to you how brave she is. And you’d rather her safe. But you can climb higher than her, even if you couldn’t let go of the rope to swing into the creek.

Her hair is all cut weird and constantly messy, shorter at the front, and you realised that it’s because she has a nervous habit of biting it off. You never see her do it, but she’s always commenting on how beautiful your hair is, which is weird to you, because her hair is that type of hair that would shine beautifully gleaming perfect midnight if it weren’t for the fact it’s always such a mess. 

So you spend a day learning how to braid hair, hearing her complain every time you hit a tangle when you tell her it’s a must to try to accomplish it. You talk to her the whole time, telling her the technique, and every day after that day you wasted under the blue sky with your hands on her hair, all newly silky because of you, she keeps her hair braided. You can tell she does it herself, messy and beautifully intricate in a way that makes your heart swell.

She tries to get you to jump into the creek again, telling you that if you’re going to be a pirate with her, you can’t have these silly fears. You just tell her that pirates aren’t jumping into the water unless they’re walking the plank. And she tells you that’s not true, what if she fell off and was drowning; you wouldn’t let her just die in the water without trying to save her.

You climb down to swim into the water towards her, but she meets you halfway and you both sit with the water up to your chests. 

You tell her nothing would scare you into letting her drown. You tell her you’d do anything to save her. And she smiles like she believes it. Like this is a moment in time that you should capture for each other, forever. Because nothing can touch your love for her. 

“Aradia?” she asks, still looking down at the water you’re sitting in as it glistens irrescendent in the summer sun. 

“Yeah?” 

“Can I tell you something you can’t tell  _ anyone _ else.”

“Of course, cross my heart,” you say, in awe of her vulnerability.

“I think I might need saving sometimes,” she says. 

“Then I’ll save you,” you say. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“I don’t want to go home,” she admits, and you see the sun is getting low enough for dinner to be coming up. “My parents will be angry cause I’m wet and muddy.” They always seem to be mad.

“Have dinner with me. You can wear one of my dresses,” you say. 

“Then they’ll be angry I’m late,” she sighs. “But okay. If your parents are okay with it.” She turns to you, and you can see now that there are tears on her face. “Thank you,” she says. And then she hugs you.

All the details blur but the love.

She smiles like sparkly stars and she deserves everything. She’s like a forest fire and she’s like the shade of the trees that burn. You hate to see her cry.

So you always talk in great details of all her exploits. She loves talking about ships and seas like they’re freedom or something. You’re very interested in archeology, and you’ve read extensively on other cultures and how to be ethical about your career when you get one (since you’re seven right now), but she seems okay just stealing jewels from foreign lands. It might be an ideological difference on your end, but there is one thing you want more than anything: to run away with her.

One day she’s actually allowed on a sleepover, and the two of you sneak out late and lay on your lawn under the stars. She asks if she can admit something else to you. It’s only like that she ever says anything real, anything that isn’t her trying to outpace and outwin you. With permission, in the quiet, alone. And you always promise her, of course.

“I’m scared I’m going to ruin you,” she says. 

“Well that’s stupid,” you say in return. She doesn’t elaborate or anything, so after your immediate reply the two of you are quiet under the night sky.

It makes you feel a little sick, that she could think that. There’s something so deeply and profoundly  _ wrong _ with it. Like the air she’s living in is poison, like her house is haunted, and you can’t stand the idea. You want to wrap her up in your softest cardigan forever. You want to run away and be pirates or archaeologists or whatever she wanted. The world is too big for her to feel like that. Like she isn’t love to you. Like she isn’t your best friend.

Why couldn’t you have ran away to India with her? Why couldn’t you have grabbed her hand and fled? You see the ghosts in her eyes. She never needs to cry. 

Weren’t you supposed to save her?

Is there a version of this in some universe where you save her?


End file.
